Ready for 2013

I feel like I need to apologise seeing as my entire December posting content has been on that classically festive topic of gun control.

The truth is that this month has been a difficult one in different ways for some people close to me, so I've been helping them where I could.  Christmas has naturally been a distraction as well, and our household has been going through three or four cycles of the common cold between us.  In essence, there's not been a whole lot of quality parenting going on.

However, I'll round up the year with some general updates.  2012 was to be my last year as a stay at home mother.  I anticipated that my daughter would probably start school at Easter, so I'd start work around then also, but that date has been brought forward to January, at least as a short-term measure.  

Right now, going back to work seems like a huge, intimidating step.  How the hell am I going to get everything done?  Of course, I'm only working mornings, so I've got the afternoons.  I am not an afternoon person though, so this should be an, er, growth of character experience.

Other updates... my whole food improvement project has totally gone out of the window.  I want to bring that back on board, but I don't want to pile too much pressure on myself until I get into the swing of the job.  No new year's resolutions for me!

My son's reading is almost taking off.  He's on the 'pink reading' at school, which seems to mostly be cat, sat, mat.  He's still reluctant to make the effort to read the words as opposed to memorising the text for a page, so I feel like we're still waiting for the breakthrough, but it's fun to watch.  And he's very enthusiastic about anything with letters/sounds.

He absolutely loves writing.  He had his birthday at the start of the month, and was really enthusiastic about doing the Thank-you cards for his friends.  I wrote the message, he signed his name, and he wrote the name of each child on the envelope, while I prompted him through the sounds.  A few letters I had to write down for him to copy, but most of them he scrawled from memory.  We wrote all ten of these in one sitting, because he was so enthusiastic.  Admittedly, you'd be hard put to recognise some of the names, but he had a vision in mind.  I love that he does this, and I'm trying to be more visible about hand-writing stuff myself. (I hate writing by hand; viva la digital revolution!)

The room-sharing has, by and large, remained a success.  Transitioning my daughter from the floor mattress to the bed was a bit trickier.  Originally, we left the mattress by the bed in case she fell out, but what was happening was that we'd put her to bed, and she'd climb down to the mattress to actually go to sleep.

This had never been an issue with my son, who also went from floor mattress to bed (though he'd been on the mattress for only a couple of months).  He was just excited to be in a big boy bed.  Our daughter was happy to have her own big bed, but she wouldn't try to sleep in it.  After a week, we took away the mattress and replaced it with a pillow--as it was, she's only fallen out a couple of times anyway.  That's not been a problem at all.

We had a couple of rough nights with the bed transition, though nothing major, but she's never quite been so good about sleeping since.  Oddly, while my son became more secure having her in his room, she's become less so.  However, she's been extra clingy in general, so I think this might have more to do with the round of colds than the sleeping arrangements.  She's been better the past couple of nights, which is great. Of course, I know now that it's only as good as the latest phase!

Anyway, roll on 2013.  A year in which I will get my career on track, my son will learn how to read and ride a bike and my daughter will become potty-trained.  Or such are my expectations.  Let's see what I'm saying a year from now.